Ward beat Kessler fair and square

By Boxing News - 11/23/2009 - Comments

ward3434By Scott Gilfoid: It’s starting to boil my kettle reading how some boxing fans are questioning the new World Boxing Association super middleweight champion Andre Ward’s impressive 11th round technical decision win over Mikkel Kessler last weekend in the Super Six tournament bout in Oakland, California.

The talented American Ward showed his talent and superior boxing skills and giving the 30-year-old Kessler a severe thrashing to the point where the judge had to step in and halt the bout in the 11th round because Kessler’s face was cut to ribbons. Instead of boxing fans giving Ward credit for having beaten Kessler to a pulp, I’m hearing things like Ward should have been disqualified for head butts and throwing elbows. What’s the big deal? So what if Ward bumped heads a few times with Kessler or threw a few elbows here and there. It wasn’t like it was on purpose. Those kinds of things happen in boxing. Ward even said it himself after the fight that he’s not a dirty fighter.

Let’s be real here. Does anybody really think that Kessler would have still won the fight had he not been head butted, held or hit with a few stray elbows? If you believe that, you need to sit down and watch the fight again because there was never a moment in the fight where Kessler was even close to being competitive. It was totally one-sided from start to finish.

Ward was just a better boxer, period. That’s just the way things go. Ward is probably going to win the Super Six tournament unless someone else like Andre Dirrell can give him some competition. That’s just the cold hard facts and some people might not like to accept it but that’s how it will turn out. Arthur Abraham, Carl Froch and Kessler basically have no chance to win this fight.

Sure, they have a slight chance, but I only see it as a chance to win it if Ward or Dirrell end up badly injured and can’t fight. But back to the fouling issue. Ward didn’t change the outcome of Saturday’s fight one iota by clashing heads with Kessler and the elbows didn’t change anything either. Personally, I didn’t see Ward throw one elbow during the fight, but that’s what I’m hearing from fans. I’m also hearing a lot of crying about how there were originally two American judges and then it was changed to one after complaints from Kessler. Another gripe that is being thrown around is that the referee was American and he let Ward get away with clinching, and clashing heads. That’s a bunch of bull.

The referee could see with his own two eyes that the head clashes were accidental which is why he didn’t penalize Ward. But even if the referee had penalized Ward for clashing heads, how would that have changed the fight? So what if Ward would lose a point, he would still beat Kessler black and blue. Why can’t some fans deal with their fighter losing? This is bad for the Super Six tournament to hear these complaints because it will cause people to question the competition and think that it’s not being run fair and square. That’s not good news for boxing and it only serves to hurt the sport. Can’t we all just get along?



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